NEW YORK – Kamala Harris ' interview with Fox News Channel's Bret Baier on Wednesday is the latest indication that Democrats during this campaign are increasingly willing to engage with a network well-stocked with supporters of opponent Donald Trump.
Since the party's convention in August, roughly twice as many Democrats have been on Fox than during the same period in President Joe Biden's 2020 campaign, which itself was more often than when Hillary Clinton was the nominee in 2016, according to the network.
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Whether to ignore Fox or seize opportunities to change the viewpoints of some audience members has long been a subject of internal debate among Democrats. Biden didn't make a Fox-specific appearance during his campaign. Clinton made one appearance during her primary campaign and another in mid-summer 2016.
“The vice president, Governor Walz and our campaign believe it is important to speak to all Americans, wherever they are getting their information or entertainment, so they can hear directly from us — not through a filter — who Vice President Harris is, what she stands for and what she's running to do,” said Ian Sams, Harris campaign spokesman.
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Trump grumbled on his social media feed this week about Sams, who was interviewed Wednesday on Fox by Dana Perino, Tuesday by Martha MacCallum and Monday by Neil Cavuto. Trump said Sams “virtually owns the network.”
“It's not worthwhile doing interviews on Fox because it all just averages out into NOTHING,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Fox News has totally lost its way.”
Trump on Wednesday appeared on Fox, hours before Harris, in a pre-taped town hall meeting featuring female voters and hosted by Harris Faulkner.
Baier's interview with Harris was combative, starting with a discussion on immigration and touching on the economy, the Biden administration and polls showing Americans think the nation is on the wrong track. At times they seemed to be talking past each other.
“I'm in the middle of responding to the point you're raising and I'd like to finish,” Harris said at one point.
Harris' running mate, Tim Walz, has appeared two weeks in a row on “Fox News Sunday,” which runs on both broadcast and cable. Host Shannon Bream said she was “a little bit surprised” when the Democratic campaign reached out prior to his appearance this past Sunday.
“I think folks are still undecided out there,” Walz replied. “I appreciate you. You ask good, hard questions and your viewers get a chance to hear.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was something of a “Fox whisperer” earlier in the campaign, seeming to relish mixing it up with network anchors to the point where he opened his Democratic convention speech by saying, “I'm Pete Buttigieg and you might recognize me from Fox News.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Reps. Jared Moskowitz of Florida and Ro Khanna of California are among the other Democrats who have made multiple appearances.
The Fox guest shots are largely confined to daytime and, like Bream's show, weekend hours. Democrats are seldom seen on prime-time shows hosted by Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld.
While it usually doesn't make sense for a Democrat to go on a network fully committed to their defeat, this is an exception, said Dan Pfeiffer, co-host of “Pod Save America” and former aide to President Barack Obama. “A Democrat going into enemy territory is a great way to get attention and soft Republicans and Republican-leaning independents is a top target for her campaign,” he said.
Fox also argues that it has more independent and Democratic viewers than most people think. Its audience size alone makes it tough to ignore: Fox's share of the cable news audience is more than CNN and MSNBC combined in all of the swing states except Nevada.
What Harris was facing in Fox's Bret Baier
Baier hosts a 6 p.m. news hour on Fox and, with MacCallum, generally co-hosts most of Fox's big news events. “I would expect what you pretty much get with Baier: strong, tough questions with aggressive follow-up. In a word: fair," wrote Tom Jones in the Poynter Institute journalism newsletter on Wednesday.
Yet Baier is also keenly aware of the network's audience, sometimes to his detriment. Court papers in a lawsuit against Fox News for spreading false stories about an elections technology firm after the 2020 election revealed that Baier privately urged Fox's controversial — and ultimately correct — call of Biden's win in Arizona be overturned.
Trump said on Truth Social that he would have preferred a more hard-hitting journalist conduct the Harris interview, saying Baier “is often very soft on those in the 'cocktail circuit' Left.”
In the days before his interview with Harris, Baier took to social media to tamp down suspicions expressed by some Fox viewers.
“No doubt she already has the list of questions. I don't trust him,” wrote one user on X, which Baier retweeted with an answer: “No one has the questions. Except me.”
To others who suspected the interview might be edited, he insisted it would be taped at 5:30 p.m. Eastern — the time the Harris campaign gave for the interview — and shown in its entirety on his show shortly after.
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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.